It's Safe
by PurpleCarpetsAgainstViolence
Summary: Dad told him to take off the amulet when they're on a hunt. And Dean didn't listen. And now the amulet sort of broke his face and Dad is making him see the evil dentist from hell.


I'm not really sure were this fic came from, other than crazy cough meds and an incredibe desire to not study for that test I'm going to fail tomorrow.  
Mine? No, the boy's aren't mine. Kripke broke them before I ever got a chance to hurt them, I swear!  
Rated for language.

00000

_The thing was heavy...It's a solid piece of brass. I would forget to change it out with the rubberised one every now and again when I was doing stunts and I've lost chips of my teeth from the horns hitting my mouth." - Jensen Ackles; Supernatural Official Companion Seanson 5_

00000

Dean figures he had it coming.

When you think about it, doing what they do, running around with a Mesopotamian amulet around your neck that can at any random point turn into a deadly, teeth shattering projectile ranks pretty high on the stupid meter. It's a small miracle this hasn't happened up until now, actually.

And it's not like Dad hasn't warned him about it at least a million times. Never outright ordered him to take the necklace off, though (and Dean is pretty sure that right there he might have finally found an order that he would have pointblank refused to obey). But the old man is certainly enjoying this little piece of Dean's karma biting him in the ass.

Twelve years of 'take that thing off when you're on a hunt' and 'for God's sake, at least tuck it under your shirt' and 'don't come cryin' to me when it whacks a hole into that pretty face of yours' and finally it's happened. A poltergeist threw Dean into a wall and he _hadn't_ taken the thing off and it _wasn't_ tucked under his shirt and it _did_ whack a hole into his pretty face.

He's _not_ crying, though. Not unless you count the small salty pools that have accumulated right underneath his dark lashes as tears. Which you really shouldn't, because it's not like you can help your eyes leaking when you have just accidentally amputated an entire front tooth and your dad is performing emergency surgery on your mouth, so no, Dean isn't crying.

"Not much I can do about it." Dad announces. Leaning back in the chair he pulled up to Dean's bed he starts putting away the flashlight, needle and dental floss.

Not much he can do about it? What the hell? No, no, no, no, no! Something has to be done about this!

Dad pushes Dean back onto the rough pillows, which Dean is kinda thankful for, because sitting upright did something funny to the pounding of blood all over his upper jaw, but that's not the point, because "What do you mean you can't fucking do much about it?"

Dad shrugs and throws a couple more Codeine and a soggy ice pack in the general direction of Dean's head.

"Well, excuse me, but I can't do stitches behind your teeth and I ain't a sculptor so I sure as hell can't build you a new tooth." Fucker is actually smiling in the face of Dean's misery.

"Well, excuse the fuck out of _me_, but I can't run around with only half my teeth!"

"How's thirty-one half of thirty-two, huh kiddo?"

"People are gonna think I got scurvy."

"You're enjoying the melodrama, aren't you?" Dad huffs with a small laugh while he's fetching a glass of water to go with the pain meds that Dean has yet to look at even once. "Anyway, chicks dig pirates."

Dean tries for a manly pout that has Dad snorting again. Asshole. If the tables were turned, Dean would totally be supportive and understanding and building new teeth left, right and centre.

Then Dad is next to him on the bed all of a sudden and supporting Dean's neck and making him swallow the stupid pills and Dean would complain about it but he figures he has lost his rights to question his dad's better judgment for the foreseeable future.

"So, this the place where you get to give the whole 'I told you so' speech?" Dean asks once he's been placed back on top of his pillows.

Dad gives him a small smile. The one that always makes him look like he's about to ruffle some small kid's hair.

"Nah, it's no fun when you're expecting it."

And the pain meds must be kicking in good, because Dean doesn't move a hand to stop him from removing the amulet from around his neck and placing it somewhere he can't see and all he does is nod, when Dad announces that he's 'gonna hang onto this for a while'.

But it's not like Dean is used to not having his necklace to press and pinch and push against his chest while he's trying to get comfortable and it makes him kinda panicky that he can't close his fingers around it whenever he wants, which is ridiculous, but so what?

"Dad?" he rasps and feels his lips chafing over the remnants of his once glorious front tooth. "We're…we're gonna do something about this, right?"

And yeah, this time Dad does ruffle his hair a bit, which would be pretty damn embarrassing if he wasn't high and tired and in pain and kinda irrationally terrified.

00000

Dean doesn't know what he thought would happen when Dad promised that somebody was gonna help Dean with his tooth problem, but this? This wasn't fucking it.

Lying belly up on an uncomfortable, turquoise torture rack with bright lights shining straight into his eyes so that he can't even see what's happening, while a sadistic lady dentist keeps poking and hacking and molding away inside his mouth, certainly wasn't it. Makes him feel like a goddamn ritual sacrifice.

"Sir, please try and keep your tongue out of the way."

Dean fucking hates the dentist lady. And he hates her male assistant that keeps pointing the blinding light right into Dean's face. And he hates that he can't talk and he hates the cotton stuff they put into his mouth and he really hates the weird vacuum cleaner thing they keep stabbing into his cheeks.

Dentists suck hairy balls.

Well come to think of it, this one probably doesn't. She's so goddamn hideous, no self respecting man in any state of drunkenness would ever let her near his testicles. She's an old, sexually frustrated hag that gets her only satisfaction in life out of tormenting her hapless patients.

That's probably a bit harsh and Dean wants to feel bad about it, but she's fat and old and has a crooked nose and a mono brow and she's currently torturing him so he's allowed to hate her and accuse her of whatever the hell he wants.

"Almost done here, Mr Livgren." she informs Dean and looms over him again, her huge, wobbly breasts pressing against his forehead. Dean feels sexually assaulted.

She picks up a new instrument of torture and Dean desperately wants to tell her that 'it's safe' because he's pretty sure that if she's not a sexually frustrated, old hag, she's at the very least the female reincarnation of Christian Szell and he's in a horrible twenty-first century remake of The Marathon Man.

_It's safe!_ He wants to scream, only he can't, because the male nurse put something in his mouth to screw his jaws open and he's pretty sure that Christine Szell is about to start searching for live, freshly-cut nerves just for the fun of it.

Dean tries to grab his amulet and hold on tight to pull through the building panic, but his hand just lands flat and empty on his chest. He's thinking about making a run for it and punching anyone who'd try to stop him – it's probably a good thing Dad made sure he wasn't packing this morning – when suddenly all the crap is removed from his mouth and somebody is shoving a plastic cup of water in his face and it's over.

00000

Dad spends the rest of the day being nice and gentle and it's sort of freaking Dean out. Especially since he's doing the being nice and gentle while sitting next to Dean on his bed and not two hundred miles away at the kitchen table, cleaning the guns. Which leads Dean right to the core of his irritation: The fact that he's been confined to his bed, because Dad made him take another round of Codeine. _Always do the opposite of what the medical professional suggests._ That must be some kind of Marine rule. Or Winchester rule. Probably both.

"Fries should work" Dad says and nudges the takeout bag closer to Dean's side of the bed.

Dean hates to admit it, but Dad's probably right. Fries are about the only thing he is both willing and able to eat. They've tried the burger and the sandwich and the beef wrap, but he can't get any of that past his lips without using his newly built front tooth and pain pills or not, that frickin' _hurts_, so Dad got to eat the burger and the sandwich and he threw away the wrap 'cause he's full and he's not gonna cut it up and fork feed it to Dean and Dean is left to shove a couple of French fries into the side of his mouth.

A couple hours later Dean is still hungry ('cause sorry, fries are awesome and all, but they do not constitute a fulfilling meal) and Dad orders them pizza which he puts on an old plate for Dean to cut into tiny pieces with his Bowie knife.

"Hey, Dad?" Wow, it's weird, talking with your mouth full and still being able to enunciate.

"Hmpf?" Okay, so Dad can just shove a whole slice into his mouth. He's already munched his way through three slices and Dean is still working on his first. Dean would complain about it being unfair but he figures Dad didn't perforate his face with his own jewelry and Dean did so Dad gets to gloat and have all the pizza he can eat and Dean gets to suck it up.

"I was just thinking that maybe it was a good thing, you being so anal 'bout us always brushing our teeth when we were kids."

Dad snorts and helps himself so another slice.

"Yeah, what gave you that idea?"

"I _really_ hate dentists." Dean assures him solemnly and Dad barks a heartfelt laugh. Which makes the whole being-tortured-by-the-crazy-lady-dentist thing pretty much worth it in Dean's book.

"Yeah, I know."

Dean blinks at him. Blinks again. Nope, comment not making sense, even after turning it around in his head.

"What?"

"We took you there once. Before…"

Dad's smile turns wistful and far away, like it always does when he decides to mention _before_. He goes quiet and Dean really wants him to continue (except that he sort of doesn't, but wanting wins out).

"What happened?" he asks, realizing that his knife with the tiny piece of pizza on it is hovering somewhere between the plate on his lap and his mouth. He puts it down.

Dad's smile twitches and for a second it covers his whole face, eyes and dimples and all.

"One of your back teeth wasn't coming out right, I think. Spent three nights cryin' your eyes out so we finally took you to a dentist. Poor man took one look at you and you had your hands over your mouth, _screaming_ at him from between your fingers. He somehow got his own hand in there and I swear to God, you bit down so hard, you drew blood." Dad's chuckling with the fond memory and Dean is scared to breathe because it might just break the spell. "Your mom told the guy it was his fault for being too goddamn intimidating. Gave you some soup when we got home and everything was fine the next day."

"Tomato rice soup's pretty awesome." Dean whispers, which is code for _Mom was really awesome_.

"Yeah…"

"Yeah…"

They both stare off into the distance at a yellowish stain on the wall above the TV, not seeing the stain at all.

"Dean" Dad speaks up after what feels like a long time. "Take it off before the next hunt, son."

And just like that, the amulet is back around Dean's neck and he's saying "yes, sir" and feeling warm and fuzzy and safe and yeah, it's ridiculous and girly, but so what?

But he does tuck the necklace under his shirt from now on. For the next couple of hunts. Okay, so he only does it once, but the amulet is real special and it's supposed to keep him safe and anyway, it didn't hurt him on purpose, so it's alright.


End file.
